Help for English Students

Belonging through textual engagement

The final aspect of belonging on the ETA list and the one my students have had the most difficulty with is belonging through textual engagement. Like all of the aspects, and the concept of belonging itself, belonging through textual engagement seems ephemeral to the point of meaninglessness. However, if you can master it and apply it to your texts it will help to enrich your responses.
Belonging through textual engagement has two parts to it:
the sense of belonging you feel when you really connect with the characters, themes or setting of a text.
the sense of belonging you feel when you find a person or group of people who share your appreciation of a text or texts.
Make a list of your favourite stories. Why are they your favourites? Do you relate to the main character? Do you want to be like him/her? Do you empathise with their plight? Or is it the setting that appeals? Is it a place you know or somewhere you think you could belong?
Now for the hard part… why do you feel connected with this text? Character, theme, plot and setting (the elements of story) are conveyed through words on a page and the effect of those words is often due to the use of techniques. What are the techniques that connect you to the text?
An example of belonging through textual engagement is the empathy we might feel for the persona of Dickinson’s poem ‘I had been hungry all the years’. The speaker of the poem feels awkward and out of place at the table. The use of slant rhyme (words that almost rhyme but don’t quite – “crumb” and “room”) conveys this awkwardness through language to the audience, creating a sense of empathy from the reader to the speaker.
Similarly, the gesture of rubbing the soil of a battlefield between his hands, repeated throughout the film Gladiator by the hero Maximus, reminds the audience that the general is actually a humble farmer, who wants nothing more than to return to his wife and son. This reinforces our sympathy for his plight and creates a connection between us and the text.
The second aspect of belonging through textual engagement is the connection we feel with others who appreciate the same texts. Consider the clubs that exist for fans of authors from Jane Austen to Neil Gaiman. As we know, texts are not limited to novels. I was, a long time ago, president of the ANU Slayer Society, a club dedicated to the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Some of my best friends at uni were people I met through that club. What is it about books, films and tv that bring us together? This idea might also be an interesting prompt for a creative piece.